TITLE:
Friction and Wear Behavior of Ti-6Al-7Nb Biomaterial Alloy
AUTHORS:
Mamoun Fellah, Omar Assala, Mohamed Labaïz, Leila Dekhil, Alain Iost
KEYWORDS:
Tribological Behavior; Friction and Wear Tests; Biomaterial; Total Hip Prosthesis; Ti-6Al-7Nb
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biomaterials and Nanobiotechnology,
Vol.4 No.4,
October
24,
2013
ABSTRACT: Titanium has been increasingly applied
to biomedical application because of its improved mechanical characteristics,
corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. However their application remains
limited, due to the low strength and poor wear resistance of unalloyed
titanium. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the friction and wear
behavior of high-strength titanium alloys: Ti-6Al-7Nb used in femoral stem (total hip
prosthesis). The oscillating friction
and wear tests have been carried out in ambient air with oscillating
tribotester in accord with standards ISO 7148, ASTM G99-95a, ASTM G 133-95 under different conditions of
normal applied load (3, 6 and 10 N) and sliding speed (1, 15 and 25 mm.s-1), and as a counter pair we used the ball of
100C 6, 10 mm of diameter.
The surface morphology of the titanium alloys has been characterized by SEM, EDAX,
micro hardness, roughness analysis measurements. The behavior observed for both
samples suggests that the wear and friction mechanism during the test is the
same for Ti alloys, and to increase resistance to wear and friction of biomedical titanium alloys
used in total hip prosthesis (femoral stems) the surface coating and treatment are required.